Axe To Fall At DEC (Again) UPDATED

A reader forwarded an email sent out yesterday by a PEF member at the the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Fish Wildlife & Marine Resources Office confirming that the agency is being targeted for yet another round of layoffs.

The target, according to the message, is 5 percent of the PEF workforce statewide, which is 86 positions in the DEC alone.

UPDATE: It’s actually not as bad (relatively speaking) as expected. The latest layoff list includes 43 DEC positions. Total job losses in this round: 321, which makes for more than 700 all told for PEF.

“We do not yet know which positions in our division are targeted; we will be provided with the list by noon tomorrow (Thursday),” the email continues.

“Letters are expected to be mailed tomorrow. Regional directors will be receiving the lists of regional positions that are affected.”

“The RIF apparently is based on seniority; there is not expected to be any bumping, and the RIF is not to affect CSEA titles. Funding source for the targeted positions is not relevant. Positions were ostensibly targeted based on a percentage of the workforce.”

“The Division Management Team was not privy to the process nor were we consulted about which titles or which items should be targeted. Nonetheless, that’s little consolation to any of us. Please be sensitive to the very tense conditions that will permeate our offices tomorrow.”

As has been painstakingly chronicled by the TU’s Rick Karlin, the Cuomo administration is targeting PEF as it moves forward with its layoff plan while protecting the state’s largest workforce, CSEA, which struck a tentative five-year contract deal with the governor during the final week of the 2011 session.

DEC has already seen its ranks significantly thinned since the Pataki years. A disagreement over continued layoffs during then-Gov. David Paterson’s tenure caused a breaking point with former DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis, leading to his terminiation. (He’s now working for state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli).

It’s unclear what impact additional layoffs will have on the hydrofracking process at a time when the administration is looking to lift the moratorium and open some 85 percent of the Marcellus Shale to drilling.

DEC Commissioner Joe Martens admitted last week that a backlog in drilling permit application approvals is likely if “additional resources” are not allocated to the agency. He also stressed it’s unlikely any permits will be granted anytime soon – perhaps for as long as a year.

I’ve been told by several state worker readers/viewers that the next round of layoff notices would also include management confidential employees, but that has not yet been confirmed.

The Legislature passed a bill that extended much – but not all – of the CSEA deal to the MCs, although they went two years without a raise, and so this brings their total of annual 0 percent increases to five years – something that is not sitting at all well.

Targeting the MCs, who are not unionized and thus cannot engage in collective bargaining, would be a significant move by the administration, and one intended to send a message that no one is safe at a time when the state is trying to reach the $450 million worth of workforce savings included in the 2011-2012 budget deal.